Franz West (b. 1947)

'Early on I realized that the purely visual experience of an artwork was somehow insufficient. When I started to work as an artist, I wanted to expand the traditional boundaries of sculpture and found inspiration in Fluxus, although that movement didn't have much of a presence in Vienna, where I have always lived. I wanted to go beyond the purely optical and include tactile qualities as well. My works aren't things one just looks at, but things that the viewer is invited to handle. That's a crucial aspect of the series of works that I call Paßstück - which means pieces that fit into something else, like cogwheels. The term is taken from engineering, but when I was giving shape to these objects I was also inspired by Viennese building ornament' (F. West "A Thousand Words: Franz West", in Artforum, New York February 1999).